We Can Do Better: Collected Writings on Land, Conservation, and Public Policy by Paul Johnson

From the Editor’s Note: “I first met Paul Johnson in 1988 alongside a hay wagon in a hillside pasture in southwestern Wisconsin. Paul had come across the Mississippi River from his home and farm in adjacent Iowa to meet with like-minded farmers and conservationists. His work as a state legislator to safeguard Iowa’s groundwater and promote sustainable agriculture had brought him attention well beyond his own state. At a volatile time in the rural Midwest, when tens of thousands of farms were being lost to foreclosure, his work and voice suggested a different path forward. Dressed that morning in work clothes and sporting his full brown beard, Paul did not come across as the seasoned public figure that he was. He spoke plainly and in detail about his policy work in Iowa, but also about the finer points of his own farm, its soils and water, and his family’s grazing and cropping practices. A dozen of us asked questions and shared stories from our own places and experiences in Wisconsin … Compiling this collection has often felt like a continuation of the conversation we began in that Wisconsin pasture and that we carried on for more than three decades.” Read more